However, the idea of such a union with an authoritarian Russia, attractive as it was to the German business community, evoked much skepticism in Germany’s political class and the media.

In the end, Chancellor Angela Merkel cold-shouldered it.

The rupture between Russia and the West stemming from the 2014 crisis over Ukraine has wide-ranging geopolitical implications.

Russia has reverted to its traditional position as a Eurasian power sitting between the East and the West, and it is tilting toward China in the face of political and economic pressure from the United States and Europe.

In 2014, this elaborate architecture took a big hit, and the balance was lost, at least for the time being.

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In reacting to the pro-Western regime change in Ukraine in February 2014 by reincorporating Crimea into Russia, and later by supporting an anti-Kiev rebellion in the eastern Donbas region, Russia broke free from the U.

In the coming years, those relations are likely to get appreciably closer, tending toward a quasi-alliance and quasi-integration, with Beijing as the more powerful member of the relationship.

This evolution, in turn, will lead to a Eurasia more closely interlinked than at any time in modern history, with the exception of the brief Sino-Soviet alliance in the 1950s.

What is the significance of the fundamental change in Russia’s foreign relations for Moscow’s ties with Beijing?

Russia’s confrontation with the United States and the rupture with Europe have given Sino-Russian relations a wholly different strategic context.